Making Trade Fair for Workers

Honduras continues to make improvements in its labor law enforcement - with benefits for Honduran and U.S. workers.

Ensuring American workers get a fair shake from our international trade agreements has brought me to Honduras nearly 20 times in the last five years: to blazing hot melon fields in the rural south, brightly lit government conference rooms in the capital, and countless meetings with workers and employers in sectors that export t-shirts, bananas, auto parts and more to Europe and the United States.

The message I bring to the government is always the same: We are willing to work with you and support you, so long as you are taking meaningful actions to comply with the labor commitments of the trade agreement between Honduras and the United States (the CAFTA-DR). This means standing up for our workers by protecting the rights of Honduran workers.

In Honduras, this message has yielded positive results. The country has made and continues to make concrete improvements in its labor law enforcement. Just last month, its government enacted historic legislation that makes it harder and more costly for employers to violate labor laws. Changes like these not only improve conditions for Honduran workers, but simultaneously level the playing field for American workers and businesses.

By helping ensure that goods exported to the United States from our trade partners are not made with child labor, forced labor, or by workers earning below the minimum wage or in other exploitative conditions, we are giving workers and business in the United States a fair chance to compete.

The U.S. Department of Labor plays a critical role in the enforcement of free trade agreement labor commitments in a number of ways: engaging with governments to make sure that their laws and practices align with what they’ve promised; working with the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative and the U.S. Department of State in pursuing formal enforcement actions when bilateral engagement efforts fall short; and using targeted technical assistance to promote the rule of law and help enforce and strengthen labor protections.

Halima Woodhead (center) in Honduras.

In Honduras, we’ve made significant progress through this coordinated process.

In February 2015, the Department of Labor published a report under the CAFTA-DR that raised serious concerns about Honduras’ enforcement of labor laws and called on Honduras to address these concerns.

Working with a willing government open to meaningful reform, the department provided technical assistance to support Honduras’ efforts to fight child labor and strengthen labor law enforcement. This approach of combining direct engagement under a trade agreement with targeted technical assistance has proven incredibly successful at addressing both immediate and long-term labor law enforcement challenges.

Almost immediately after we issued our report and announced our project, the Honduran government allocated more resources to its labor inspectorate to be more effective in addressing and sanctioning violations.

In December 2015, the U.S. and Honduran governments signed a historic action plan to improve labor law monitoring and enforcement. And just last month, a new labor inspection law – a key part of the action plan – went into effect. The new law increases enforcement tools, stiffens penalties for violators, and creates an audit mechanism to root out corruption and improve the rule of law. Together, the action plan, new labor inspection law, and improvements to the labor inspectorate represent major steps toward addressing the concerns we identified in our February 2015 report, and ensuring fair trade for U.S. workers and businesses.

What’s at stake is bigger than Honduras: It’s about American workers competing on a level playing field with workers around the world. Getting to free and fair trade requires the hard work of trade enforcement – frequently collaborative, often contentious and always time-consuming. That’s why I’ll continue to engage with my counterparts in the Honduran government to make sure they continue to make advances in labor enforcement consistent with the agreement's commitments. No matter how many trips are required, I’m willing to do more, because I know that this work matters.

When we get it right, we get results that benefit U.S. workers and businesses. At the same time, we help make sure that Honduran workers are treated fairly and are afforded the labor rights promised under the agreement. Strong enforcement of the labor provisions of our trade agreements ensures that trade is not only free, but fair.

Halima Woodhead is an international labor advisor for trade policy in the department’s Bureau of International Labor Affairs.